


Love, Love, What Is It Good For?

by glassthroat



Category: Bleach
Genre: Aizen I hate you and your face., Also? Denial ain't just a river in Egypt you jackass., Drabble, M/M, Other, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, Tumblr Prompt, prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-16
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-02-09 04:19:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1968816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glassthroat/pseuds/glassthroat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by a Tumblr prompt: "You're so in love with Hirako Shinji, it's so obvious"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love, Love, What Is It Good For?

“— love?”

He says that word slowly, as if it is anathema to what he is. The statement alone is laughable enough, making his features twist for a second in a myriad of thoughts that are reflected almost not at all upon the refined visage. Love is not an emotion that is at all familiar to Aizen Sousuke; he’s aware of what it is. He cultivated it, purposefully, within Momo. He has seen it all his life in the units of family and lover alike. He can define it easily. But as to experiencing it himself? The notion is laughable for he is a man whom controls his emotions; he always has done so, keeping them so deeply hidden within himself that they are but disconnected notions at this point in time for the god. That is what he believes of himself and he will not ever allow it to be otherwise.

This is a claim that he should be able to brush aside, no matter what sort of pause it gives to the deity — 

and, despite what should be right, what he knows is incorrect, it does give him pause.

— for he remembers halcyon days of summer evenings, watching the sky bleed ruby and gold into amethyst and jet shades off the clouds, their surfaces gleaming peach and orange, cold tea in hand while they sit on the barracks walkway, enjoying the silence while cicadas sing their mating song in a frenzy of ensuring that their offspring will emerge seventeen years down the line. Those are nights of peace between them, back before his captain begins to regard him openly with mistrust and refusing to let him expand beyond a certain view.

— he remembers the flirtations he would receive and the sour look on his captain’s face afterwards, the scowling, the way that the blonde’s nose would scrunch up, the flesh between Shinji’s brows developing the furrow that he’s intimately familiar with and how he wants to reach upwards, to soothe the frown away. He only makes it worse by chiding his captain, by saying that such a frown will only bring wrinkles to Shinji’s skin and the response is a flippant and almost angry snarling of words, making him hide his smile once more while he simply weathers the abrupt flash of temper.

— the god remembers it all, the days spent together and the late nights, filled with paperwork and arguments. It was comfortable, the way he could sit beneath the older man’s thumb, the way he would work hard and do everything correctly, just to see Shinji frown because he couldn’t find any faults in anything that Sousuke did. He worked hard to make sure he was indispensable to his captain. He had chosen the blonde for so many reasons, none of which ever came properly to a realization for the brunette deity. It is not clear when he finds himself content to stay there, willing to abandon everything for this one man.

— Sousuke Aizen remembers the times when he saw his captain looking at him with an expression he could not place, save that something about it made his breath catch and his lips part. There was always a strange chemistry and dangerous intimacy to them from the first time that they ever met and it would be so easy, he knows, to give into it. He knows he’s held out at arm’s length for so many reasons. But still, still, he eases closer, trying to see if those arms that keep him pushed out will ever falter, if he will not be held out but pulled in, to be able to rest his weary head against one sharp shoulder and simply be held, to hear the beat of another’s heart when he sleeps, to hold and be held in return.

— he remembers kissing him.  
— he remembers the taste for days afterwards.  
— he remembers the way that they seem to grow to touching more frequently.  
— he remembers the longing within him, a strange need for another person, a thing he’s never felt before.  
— he remembers when it was that he knew that this was a weakness he had to expel from himself.

— he remembers—  
 _“You were all such wonderful test material.”_  
remembers drawing his sword, bringing it upwards, the look in those eyes one of horror, one of betrayal, one of anger as the moonlight from above reflected off the elegant sweep of his zanpakutou’s blade..

— … he remembers always being shut out, even when they kissed, even when skinny fingers wrapped through his, even when he looked upwards at a face framed through blonde strands, the flush of heat, those eyes watching him carefully even in the middle of everything that they did, everything that burned within them. He remembers how cold he’d feel afterwards, despite the heat of skin, despite the way that they moved together, for those eyes still watched him almost dispassionately sometimes, still without trust, even in the midst of such intimacy.

— and he remembers knowing that he would never be looked at the way he wished, never seen for himself, never acknowledged. Perhaps that is when his thoughts grow bitter, like wormwood, like ash, the bitterness spreading to leave him callused within his own mind, once more aware that no matter how hard he might try, he will be separated from that man. The one person who could see through him couldn’t see him at all, no matter how many hints that Aizen would throw to the blonde, is the singular individual whom he wants to see him for who he is. The invitations, the luring, the desire — all of it was dismissed, tossed to the side like so much garbage and he is left holding nothing, reminded once more that one’s own desires are futile, useless things and to want anything will only end badly for himself. 

— more than anything, he remembers. 

But worse than remembering is knowing that he made an attempt to end everything, to excise himself of those emotions. And for a hundred years, he had done so, had forced the thoughts out of his mind, the smells that had seemed to linger for days, weeks, out of his nose. He had put everything in storage, had forced himself to forget that the man whom had worn the captain’s haori before him had existed. He surrendered all hope of ever seeing that man again, even though he knows, he knows in that part of him that used the Hogyouku to warp and twist those souls, that he’s not dead.

How bitter that is to know that there was a failure. But he denies it, he denies it to himself, that he could ever have longed for a man whom had never seen him, for a man that had been just a pawn. 

Gods don’t have such desires.

“I don’t know the meaning of the word. And I certainly harbor no such feelings for him.”

The most successful liars are the ones who can deceive themselves, after all. If you believe what you’re saying is true, then other people will believe what you say.

He’s a very good liar.


End file.
